


Ice of Prospero

by Waistcoat35



Category: Original Work, The Tempest (2010), The Tempest - Shakespeare
Genre: Angst, English class piece, Gen, Loosely mentions the setting and characters of The Tempest, POV of a bird
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-02
Updated: 2017-02-02
Packaged: 2018-09-21 15:02:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9553787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Waistcoat35/pseuds/Waistcoat35
Summary: Two hundred years after the tempest that sparked a story, a gull that has made the island his home witnesses an act of fickle human nature that may change his frame of mind when it comes to caring.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I marked this as an original work as well since it only mentions the Tempest characters and shares the same island setting. For English we got a random image from the story and we could write whatever we wanted on it - but it had to be a unique perspective. So here you go! (Sorry about the cliffhanger ending)

The waves thud against the cliffs with hardened resolve - great battering rams of fury and sheer power intent on watching the world crumble - but if it crumbles, if all falls, We will remain. We birds always adapt, always find a way. If we were to fly to the ends of the earth I am sure We would forge a place for ourselves.  
I am being tossed up high by the unrelenting east wind - the tides have changed around our small island, and this gale is not one We know. This place is not how it once was. Generations of our kind have lived and died here, all of them hatching on these cliffs - and with them came the tales, tales of a larger island before time and tide ate away at it, of a wizard and a girl and two flamboyant jesters, and the king and his men and an island lord. Ariel needs no tales told of him, for he still remains and tells them himself through the murmuring of the north wind. Sometimes we think we see great Caliban too, almost invisible against the landscape to even our eyes. One day, even he shall fall.  
I fly over Ferdinand's Point, looking for a good place to roost, when I see it. Almost as though it were two hundred years past, there is a boat on the unforgiving waves. Any souls on the vessel cannot be much longer for this world - the boat will run aground on the rocks, and already it is split nearly in two. I bank sharply, soaring above the boat. This is through no ill will of Ariel's - the east wind has been sent by forces he cannot control. The gods' plans for our island are besieged. I shudder as an icy wind hits me - it feels much like a thousand sharp needles burying themselves in my breast.  
There is a lone figure on the boat - and another on the cove it has passes. Ariel may have managed to guide one to safety, but her brother may perish. I hope she shall not mourn, for there are some times when this is simply the way of things - in this harsh, unforgiving land caring is hardly an advantage.  
But no - I see her calling out, looking relieved when she hears a reply. The look of human helplessness I expected is nowhere to be seen - instead she appears to have taken on the unperturbed resolve of the very waves that bore her woe. Storms such as this are known as the Ice of Prospero - from what this girl has survived, she must surely be born of fire. She is pushing the boat that took her ashore back into the waters - I realise then what she is trying to do.  
She is trying to save her brother.  
My stomach churns as I watch, not due to the wind swaying me as I circle the scene but rather the slithering coils of dread squeezing me. The waves are becoming positively murderous, and she shall surely die, if not by drowning then by her fragile bones being obliterated against the shards of weather-beaten rock.  
My eyes half-close against the salty air blasting my face, my feet struggling to keep their grip on the smooth rock face worn down by years of wind and rain. I resist the urge to take flight, knowing I can do nothing to aid her, nor to stop her. A trickle of freezing water splashes against my head and neck from the craggy overhangs, and I shake myself to be rid of it with a wet slap.  
I know not if she will make it in time or at all, for I see a final, all-ending tidal wave on the horizon. I sit with my head bowed, for I know how this will end. But the valiance and sheer desperation I see blazing in her eyes strikes me to the core, engulfing me from my heart to my gizzard. I brace myself for the wave as it comes...  
Perhaps, I think as the world shakes and I hear the cracking of wood, there is more to be learned than I thought from the fickle, caring nature of mankind.


End file.
